Posts Tagged ‘Copyright Benefits’

An Example of Doctrine of Fair Use Overriding Classroom Guidelines

Tuesday, July 21st, 2020

The most recent posts have looked at the Doctrine of Fair Use and the educational guidelines incorporated into it. The original guidelines, known as the Classroom Guidelines, were factored into the Copyright Act of 1976, and allow educators to reproduce certain types of and portions of work to be used in a learning environment.

Although the Classroom Guidelines allow a certain amount of leniency within the Doctrine of Fair Use, the guidelines do not trump the requirements of fair use, nor do they overpower the rights of the original copyright holder.

The case below is an older, but strong example of the Doctrine of Fair Use overriding the Classroom Guidelines. Note, the courts may choose to follow the guidelines, but must ultimately rule in such a manner that favors the four criteria used to determine fair use set forth in §107 of the Copyright Act.

In the case, Basic Books, Inc. v. Kinko’s Graphics Corp., 758 F.Supp. 1522 (S.D.N.Y. 1991), the defendant, Kinko’s Graphics Corp., decided to create its own set of low-cost course packets to sell to students by photocopying materials that were obtained from college professors. However, the for-profit copying service did so without the proper permissions and without paying the licensing fees that accompanied the material in the course reading lists. Here, the plaintiffs were a group of publishers who held copyrights for some of the material that was being used in the defendant’s course packets. Kinko’s claimed that its reproduction of the material was fair use, as the course packets were for educational purposes.

In this case, the court opted not to adopt the Classroom Guidelines as a legal standard and used evaluated each of the four fair use criteria individually, even though Kinko’s asserted fair use because of the educational nature of the packets.

For the first factor, which concentrates on the purpose and nature of the use, the court examined whether the material was being used in a commercial or non-commercial manner. It found that the use was commercial, as Kinko’s intended to profit from the work, and it was not used in a non-profit or educational nature. Moreover, the court also looked at the transformative nature of the work, and whether or not the defendant further developed the original work in some way. Again, it determined that the use was not transformative as the defendant simply photocopied the pre-existing material to create the course packets.

For the second factor, which concentrates on the nature of the copyrighted work, the court examined the originality and creativity of the original work being reproduced. The court found that this factor weighed in favor of fair use since the material that the defendant was reproducing was mainly factual. The reading lists being reproduced focused mainly on fields of study and did not meet the minimum level of creativity. However, if the original work had contained a unique or one-of-a-kind element this factor may not have weighed in favor of fair use.

For the third factor, which concentrates on the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole, the court examined whether the material being reproduced was essential to the original work. It found that Kinko’s was reproducing most essential portions of the main works. Because the defendant was recreating course packets for a lower cost, it had to reproduce the most important portions of the original works in order to give the students an effective discounted option. Therefore, the court found that this factor weighed against a finding of fair use, even though the defendant was not copying the works in their entirety, it was copying the most critical portions.

For the fourth factor, which concentrates on the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work, the court examined whether the reproduction of the copyrighted works would encroach on the original creators’ rights. In this case, the court found that the reproduction was indeed affecting the rights of the original creators, as students were purchasing the discounted course packets, made by Kinko’s, instead of the full-priced packets originally created. Since the reproduction was hindering the monetary sales generated from the original works, the court found that this factor weighed against a finding of fair use.

In conclusion, three of the four factors weighed against a finding of fair use and the court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs.

While it is important for copyrighted work to be shared for certain purposes, it is the job of the courts to ensure that an original copyright owner will not be hindered by the reproduction of the work, in a commercial or non-commercial setting. In this case, specifically, the three factors that weighed against a finding of fair use were far greater than the one that supported fair use. Simply because the defendant was selling its products to students, did not automatically make it an educational use. When looking at the bigger picture, the Guidelines were set forth for educators to expand the knowledge of their students without hindering the original creators of the works being used. In this case, educational material was being used in a for-profit manner which did hinder the original creators because their sales were being negatively impacted in the marketplace.

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